Attorney General Publishes Family Law Act Resources

On 16 May 2012, the Ministry of Justice (formerly the Ministry of the Attorney General) released a variety of resource materials for the new Family Law Act. These documents are available online at

www.ag.gov.bc.ca/legislation/family-law/index.htm

and include:

1. a section by section explanation of the new legislation (PDF) with the government's interpretation of the meaning and intention of each provision;
2. a table of concordance (PDF) between the new Family Law Act and the old Family Relations Act;
3. a question and answer format discussion of common questions (PDF) about the new legislation; and,
4. a survey of the highlights of the new legislation,

among other helpful things. I am curious to see how the explanation of the new legislation will be used in practice. Although this document has a note on each page saying

"This document was developed by the Ministry of Justice to support the transition to the Family Law Act. It is not legal advice and should not be relied upon for those purposes."

whether it's legal advice or not, it's still a government-issued document interpreting new legislation and I expect will be used for precisely that purpose in court.

Notice to Mediate Regulation in Effect Throughout BC

The Attorney General has announced that the Notice to Mediate (Family) Regulation will now be in effect throughout British Columbia.

The Notice to Mediate (Family) Regulation, a regulation under the Law and Equity Act and the younger sibling of the Notice to Mediate (General) Regulation, was introduced in 2007 and allows a party to a family law case in the Supreme Court to compel a course of mediation by filing a Notice to Mediate no earlier than 90 days after filing of the Response to Family Claim and no later than 90 days before the trial date.  The Notice to Mediate (Family) Regulation was originally limited in effect to the Nanaimo registry of the Supreme Court, but was expanded to the Victoria registry the very next year, and then to the New Westminster and Vancouver registries in 2009.

The political folderol from the Attorney General's press release says this:

"The provincewide expansion of the regulation is one of a series of steps government is taking to give families involved in legal disputes alternatives to court. Most significantly, the Province passed a new Family Law Act last November that places the best interests of children first when making any decisions involving the child and modernizes the justice system by addressing issues B.C. families are facing today. The Family Law Act is expected to come into force in 2013. These changes are among initiatives government is taking to achieve efficiencies and deal with growing resource pressures on the justice system."

For more information on the new Family Law Act, click the "Family Law Act" label below or visit the Family Law Act Information & Resources page.

If Only I Could Do It All Over Again: Hindsight is 20/20

If you ever have a hankering for disturbing family-related news out of the United States, start with the website of KTLA Television out of Los Angeles, California. If you tuned in this week, you might have been interested in stories with these headlines

• Mom Arrested for Allegedly Taking 5-year-old into Tanning Booth
• Drunk Grandparents Tow Girl in Toy Car Behind SUV
• Mother Pleads Not Guilty to Bleaching Toddler's Eyes
• Woman in Mexico Claims She's Pregnant With Nine Babies
• Crazed Father Bites Off Boy's Penis

(I'm not kidding, these stories all appeared under the Popular Stories banner on KTLA's website when I wrote this post), or you might have read about the peculiar case of Marek Olszewski.

Mr. Olszewski had the stunningly poor judgment, it seems, of visiting his dentist ex-girlfriend, a Ms. Machowiak, for help with a toothache a mere two days after dumping her for another woman. I can do no better than the fine reportage of KTLA itself:

Anna Machowiak agreed [to help], but instead of treating his toothache, she gave him a large dose of anesthetic and pulled out all his teeth.

"I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions," Anna Machowiak told the Daily Mail. "But when I saw him lying there, I just thought, 'What a bastard'." 

The 34-year-old then wrapped his head in a large bandage. 

When he came to she told him there had been some complications and suggested he wait until he got home to remove the bandage. 

"I knew something was wrong because when I woke up I couldn't feel any teeth and my jaw was strapped up with bandages," Olszewski told the Daily Mail. 

When Mochowiak later moved the bandages he was horrified. "I looked in the mirror and couldn't f***king believe it. The b**ch had emptied my mouth." 

Although I cannot quite put my finger on it, there is a lesson to be learned buried somewhere in this story. Perhaps it concerns the perils of dating the professionally-employed; perhaps it's about KTLA's asterisk policy.

(It was unusually difficult to come up with the title of this post. Alternatives included "An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for a What?," "Tickling the Ivories," "Revenge Is a Dish Best Served with Floss" and "Ex With a Sweet Tooth, Yours." Have a suggestion of your own? Leave a comment.)

Update: 9 May 2012

Too funny to be true? Yup, says the Los Angeles Times.

New Court Form Templates Posted

I have posted templates on my website for the revised Supreme Court court forms which will come into effect on 25 April 2012. In the Resources & Links > The Courts, Court Forms & Case Law Resources chapter you will find templates for

• Form F51, orders following chambers applications
• Form F52, final orders, including divorce orders
• Form F54, restraining orders

In the downloads segment of the Marriage & Divorce > Divorce chapter, you'll find updated templates for a number of forms used in the do-it-yourself desk order process:

• Form F38, divorce affidavit
• Form F37, child support affidavit
• Form F52, divorce order

All divorce forms are available for both the sole divorce process, where only one spouse manages the application, and the joint divorce process, where the spouses apply for the divorce together.

Update: 28 April 2012

Sample versions of the new court forms for the desk order divorce process are now available in the Marriage & Divorce > Divorce chapter of my website.

Update: 30 April 2012

I have learned, from an acquaintance of mine who does a lot of work with government on family law issues, that the new court forms don't work particularly well in the fillable PDF format available from the Ministry of Justice. Apparently, because the forms are fillable PDFs designed let you check boxes and fill in blanks, the instructions to delete inapplicable paragraphs are impossible to carry out.

Not to worry. According to my acquaintance, who has the information straight from Court Services Branch, the unused paragraphs don't appear in the printed version of the forms.

New Legislation Will End Limitation Period for Claims on Arrears of Support

The provincial government today introduced new legislation to replace the Limitation Act. The proposed legislation, Bill 34, will tidy up a lot of the complexities of the current act and, along the way, repeal the limitation period presently governing actions for the enforcement of arrears of child support and spousal support.

Under ss. 3(1) and 46 of the new legislation, no limitation will apply to claims for arrears accumulating under a court order, or under an agreement filed in court pursuant to ss. 121 or 122 of the Family Relations Act or ss. 148 or 163 of the Family Law Act; once arrears have accumulated, they can always be enforced. Payors beware!

Supreme Court Protocol for Case Planning in High Conflict Cases

I have learned that the Supreme Court of British Columbia has developed a protocol for the appointment of case planning judges in high conflict family law cases. This process helps to address a gap between the Supreme Court Civil Rules which provide for case planning conferences, and the appointment of a case planning judge to actively manage a case through to trial, and the Supreme Court Family Rules which do not.

The protocol borrows somewhat from civil Practice Direction 4, "Case Planning and Judicial Management of Actions," and provides that a party may address the appointment of a case planning judge at the initial Judicial Case Conference. If the judge or master hearing the JCC agrees that the appointment is appropriate, the judge or master will make a recommendation, with reasons, to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If the Chief Justice agrees, which I expect would be the case with most recommendations, a case planning judge will be appointed.

If a case has already been through the JCC process and contested applications have been heard, a party may request a JCC for the purposes of addressing the appointment of a case planning judge through trial scheduling. (With such requests, trial scheduling will book a half hour instead of the usual hour and a half.) At the JCC, the requesting party will explain why the appointment would be appropriate, and the JCC judge will make a recommendation to the Chief Justice if he or she agrees.

As an alternative, counsel may write to the Chief Justice through trial scheduling to request that at a case planning judge be appointed, but the JCC approach is preferred. (In my view, requests of this nature should be reserved for circumstances in which the attendance of the parties at the JCC, as is usually required, would be significantly inconvenient or put a party at risk, or where the request for the appointment is made with the agreement of both parties.) Remember that correspondence with the court in family law matters is governed by civil Practice Direction 27, "Corresponding with the Court."

Modest Changes to Supreme Court Rules and Forms

Pursuant to an Order in Council made on 29 March 2012, certain changes to the Supreme Court Family Rules and the forms prescribed by the rules will come into effect on 25 April 2012. The changes are minor and aim to clean up a few of the court forms and make it easier to schedule Trial Management Conferences.

• Rule 14-3 will be amended to allow judges or masters to conduct Trial Management Conferences. Under the current rule, only judges may hear these conferences.
• Forms F37 and F38, the affidavits used in the desk order divorce process, will require you to delete unnecessary text, including the instructions provided in the forms.
• Forms F51 (Order Made After Application), F52 (Final Order), F54 (Restraining Order) and F85 (Order for Indigent Status) will require you to delete unnecessary text, including the instructions provided in the forms.

Order in Council 192 has not yet been published. A summary and explanation of the changes can be found in the Supreme Court's announcement of 3 April 2012.

I will update the court form templates and sample forms available on my website before the changes take effect. The orders can be found in the chapter Resources & Links > The Courts in the Supreme Court section; the affidavits can be found after my description of the do-it-yourself divorce process in Marriage & Divorce > Divorce.